


of eldritch horrors and their human

by madnessiseverything



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, As you do, Eldritch, Frumpkin's POV, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, caleb summons an eldritch being and calls it frumpkin, frumpkin ponders his human and later his human's goblin mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 11:38:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessiseverything/pseuds/madnessiseverything
Summary: Your human is strange, different than the ones that invoked you before. His lips quirk oddly when he sees you. He reaches out a hand and pats your skin gently. You wonder if he cannot see you, wonder if he believes you to be any other creature than what you are. He nods at you and, with a voice rough and quiet, says “I will call you Frumpkin, ja?”or the one where frumpkin is an eldritch being and ponders.





	of eldritch horrors and their human

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this after episode 35, when caleb dropped that beautiful "he's hungry, and so am I" line. there was a whole other story before this one, but this one is pure and i had to share it.  
> i hope you enjoy!

Your human is strange, different than the ones that invoked you before. His lips quirk oddly when he sees you. He reaches out a hand and pats your skin gently. You wonder if he cannot see you, wonder if he believes you to be any other creature than what you are. He nods at you and, with a voice rough and quiet, says “I will call you Frumpkin, ja?”    
  
You already have a name, one older than the world you now find yourself in. But something new rings in the name this human says. So you push into his touch ever so slightly and an odd noise you think might be a laugh escapes the human. You like the noise. “Okay. Frumpkin. Hello.”   
  
His name is Caleb, you learn. His hands are not always as steady as they were when they first reached out to you. The weird quirk of his lips you saw the very first time is rare. You do not like that. But he still runs his hands over your skin and slaps at you when you find yourself curious for what he does. No human had ever dared before him. Caleb is strange in those ways. 

He did not summon you to devour enemies, did not reach out to you to control you. He is alone, you learn, very alone. Familiarity radiates off of him and you stay.

You find other things you share. He too is hungry, often, continuously. He is frail, thinner than many others that invoked you before him. He does not eat, feeds you instead. You are grateful. You have not been fed like this for so long. But you find worry, confusion within yourself. Your human is capable, you know this. You wonder why then he does not seem to feed like you. He seems to hunger more for knowledge, for the words contained within the pages he reads. But you never wonder for long. After all, shared hunger brings a feeling of content with it. You like that feeling.

He shares arcane prowess, though you learn that it functions much differently in his world than it does where you know it from. He tells you that this particular kind is new to him, that he used to work with magic different than what he practices. You watch him study and learn. He tells you that he will find a way to build a connection for you - a way to wander the earth he knows without suspicion. You know it is possible. You think he will manage it once he learns more. And learn he does.

He already knows many things, and you are impressed. He will sit in front of you and talk, talk, for hours. Often you know what he speaks of, have known it for longer than Caleb must be on earth. You enjoy the talking, though. And he does too, you know it. 

He falls asleep in front of your rift a lot, hands resting on your body and open books discarded around him. You find yourself reminded how easy it would be to devour him. It would not be the first time, not at all. But then he shifts and runs his fingers over you delicately and you forget all about it. You enjoy your human’s company too much.

Then he is gone, and you worry. The first night is not uncommon, he often told you that some nights he cannot spend at your rift. It is not the first night you spend alone. But then another night passes, you think. Time is an odd thing, so very odd at this torn edge of your world and his. But time passes, many nights in his world you think. And he does not come down, a few books still strewn about the floor where he always sits. And you fear, you think. It feels cold, colder than your home can be. It sits inside of you, festers. You worry.

And Caleb stumbles back into the room too many nights later, reeking of terrible things you want to swallow humanity for. Blood sticks to his skin and he smiles at you, breathes relief and joy in a way you do not think you have ever felt from him. He runs shaking fingers over you - they shake more than you remember, more frequently- and words fall out of his mouth, quiet, rough, faster than normal. Other humans kept him away, you learn. Bad humans, different than him. They kept him away, in a cage like those older humans all that time ago tried to fit around you. Imprisoned. You want to devour those that held your human in a cage, want to swallow their lives so they can never even look upon your Caleb. But he is back, you think, and he still pets you, still calls you Frumpkin. That is what matters.

He no longer is as alone as he was when he called for you, you come to know. There is someone else now, small and skittish. The first time you see them they stare at you with wide yellow eyes and run. Caleb reassures you that they are okay, are good. They are not human, you know this. But your human pets your skin and you think they will be okay.

Caleb feeds you again, and you breathe easier. The rift is a truly odd place now, but that is not news to you. Caleb studies it, tells you things you already know but could not have put into human words. That quirk of his lip happens more now, he talks louder, does no longer whisper every word.

His new companion is called Nott and you can feel incredible pride radiate off of her whenever both her and Caleb are in your room. You like Nott, like her eyes and the way she tugs on Caleb’s sleeve to remind him of all that food you never saw him eat before.

She fears you still, but hesitant claws touch your skin from time to time. You know she will warm to you soon - can feel it from her much like that pride. She wears her emotions like clothes, like a robe made of the material of her very soul.

Nott once comes down alone, pushes a pile of dead birds towards you and tells you that she thinks she might love Caleb - but not the love some long passed souls summoned you for being slighted in. She says she has never had a child, but believes it might feel like this. You don’t know parenthood, certainly not more than Nott who lives in this odd Caleb world. But you think she will be nice to Caleb. That’s all you need to know.

Caleb continues his arcane studies. He draws many symbols in charcoal, symbols you know in a different language than his. He explains them still, his voice bright, so bright. He pushes his one hand into the center of his symbols and with the other runs familiar fingers over your skin and then you feel something new, something that you have not felt before. He smiles, brightly, something you have not seen before. A soft laugh escapes him, disbelieving and you feel a tether.

Your kind is not made for his world, has never been. But you do not mind the tether. He tells you you will know if he gets in trouble again, if he is stuck in a cage he cannot get out of. You like the idea of that, like the idea of knowing. You always have.

And so you exist in the rift, stay tethered to your human, to Caleb. He still breathes like his chest is filled with glass, still stares off into the rift with something not even you can figure out. But Nott helps, you see that she does.

She talks a lot, you realize. Nott seems the opposite of Caleb to you. She fears you, she is skittish and wary and she talks so fast. She smells of something acrid, something bitter but you do not mind it. It reminds you of things in your world behind the rift. She spills liquids on the floor and babbles apologies in such a speed you think humans lose the grasp of it. She pets you with hesitance but curiosity, her big eyes always scanning your form. Once you find her teeth in your flesh and cannot even go beyond wonder at a feeling you haven’t felt since you met Caleb; the physical pain. Her teeth are sharp and dig in deeper than you think she expected herself. She jumps back when you twitch and you think this is the cause of that nice, quiet noise Caleb makes when you pet him back. Not quite a laugh, but amusement. Yes. You like Nott. She is different than Caleb, and Caleb is different than Nott. You like them both. You never thought you would exist in this way. You do not mind it, not at all. You do not think you would like going back home very much. Your home does not have a Caleb, does not have a Nott. It does not have your human and the goblin. No, that is not a place you want to be. 

You wonder if Caleb is your home now. A Caleb home. You like the idea of it. You think he would like it too.

(Soon more people will spill into your Caleb home, will make Caleb worry and make him talk in whispers to you again. Soon there will be more hands that carefully pet you, more voices that will fill your space. Soon. But not now.)

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to drop by my [cr tumblr](https://nottanothercritter.tumblr.com) for some good old fashioned cr content and rambles about our group of disasters.


End file.
